Why China Is Investigating US Green Tariffs Ahead of Trump’s Visit
(Bloomberg) -- Beijing launched a sweeping investigation into US efforts to block imports of Chinese clean technology on Friday. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced the probe into “trade barriers on green products” alongside a separate trade investigation in the lead-up to an expected visit to Beijing by President Donald Trump in May.
By kicking off its investigation — itself a response to US probes — China is preparing a legal basis for retaliation against any new US duties after the majority of Trump’s previous tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court, experts said. The trade in green goods is “an obvious target,” said Wendy Cutler, senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, because the US has piled tariffs and other restrictions on Chinese clean-technology products over more than a decade.
“They're trying to send a signal to the US: don't impose tariffs on us as a result of these investigations because our gun is loaded and we're ready to retaliate,” Cutler added.
Under the Biden administration, the US raised tariffs on Chinese electric-vehicle battery imports to 25% and on EVs themselves to 100%, among duties on other key green products like solar panels. Trump has added his own tariffs on Chinese supply chains. In January, a World Trade Organization panel sided with Beijing in a complaint that US clean energy subsidies unfairly discriminated against Chinese technology.
China has increasingly looked to the export of green products to buoy its flagging economy, and Chinese companies have targeted the US as a lucrative market. Solar panels, electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies contributed to more than a third of the nation’s economic growth last year, according to an analysis published in February by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a nonprofit think tank. Without green industries, China would have missed its GDP target, the report said. Last year saw the country set a record for exporting green products as well.
While experts see China’s investigation into US practices as a tactical move ahead of another potential escalatory cycle of tariffs, they also see the move as sending a broader message. The Ministry of Commerce defined US green trade barriers in broad terms in its probe, including restrictions on Chinese imports, limits on technology cooperation and stymying clean energy deployment.
“China is essentially arguing that US industrial policy is actively slowing global decarbonization, a message likely aimed less at Washington than at Europe and emerging markets,” said Jonas Nahm, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
That narrative aligns with Beijing's argument at recent international climate talks that its clean technology exports are a driver of global emissions reductions. “Beijing is positioning itself as enabling fast, cheap clean energy rollout while casting the US approach as fragmented and protectionist under security pretenses,” Nahm added.
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